


Five Times Steve Rogers Thought Tony Stark Was Dead

by i_am_not_a_bird



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: 5 + 1 Things, Angst, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Implied Feelings, M/M, late love confessions, steve rogers: the world’s leading authority on waiting too long
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-12
Updated: 2019-07-12
Packaged: 2020-06-26 21:07:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19776442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/i_am_not_a_bird/pseuds/i_am_not_a_bird
Summary: And the one time it turned out to be true.





	Five Times Steve Rogers Thought Tony Stark Was Dead

**Author's Note:**

> please enjoy my rambley 2am angst

**1.**

The first time it happened, there were aliens descending upon New York City and a nuke coming in to take care of them in a far bloodier way than any of them had intended, and Tony Stark ending up proving Steve wrong and making the sacrifice play after all to take care of both of those threats.

It had been his choice, of course. In the end, Stark had chosen the selfless path, to put his life on the line for the good of the entire city. And he was a hero for it.

That didn’t make it hurt any less when Thor wrenched the faceplate off and they saw Stark’s still, lifeless face.

 _Okay,_ Steve thought, leaning back a little, trying to catch his breath. _Alright._ It was a war, he told himself, soldiers died all the time, and it was Stark’s choice this time around to sacrifice himself to save them all. The fact that he had been given a choice at all, even against odds as dark as this, was a blessing.

Still, he would have liked to have gotten to know the man, all the same. The world had faced a great loss. And he certainly didn’t envy the people back home, whoever considered Stark a close friend. He had heard the man had a dame at least, Pepper or something.

And just maybe-- okay, yeah, a part of him felt a little guilty. Like maybe what he said on the helicarrier had somehow driven Stark to do this. He knew Stark had grabbed the nuke without a second thought, that he did it because he was a hero and anyone else as honorable as him would have done the same, but it still nagged at him. He would have liked a chance to take what he said back, anyway.

But it turned out he didn’t need to, because the Hulk let out a terrible roar and Stark jerked back into consciousness, gasping for breath. “What just happened?” he demanded, looking back and forth frantically, eyes landing on Steve’s. “Please tell me nobody kissed me.”

And of course that was the first thing Tony Stark said after plummeting over a thousand feet and nearly getting himself killed. Well, some things didn’t change.

Steve glanced up at the city, damaged in places but remarkably intact for what they had just been through, and considered how to best answer that question for a moment. Finally, he looked back down at Stark, nodded slightly, and said, “We won.”

**2.**

Apparently almost dying was kind of Stark’s thing, because six months later the mansion in Malibu was attacked and Natasha seemed completely and utterly unsurprised by the whole affair.

He had to admit, he was still figuring her out. She was one of his closest friends, probably the closest friend this century, but that really wasn’t saying a lot. Between his and her S.H.I.E.L.D. missions, they really hadn’t spent enough time together to really get to know each other, so maybe that was just her standard reaction to seeing on the morning news that an old friend was dead.

But he wanted to believe there was something more there. Like maybe this was a regular occurrence, and Natasha suspected Stark was secretly alive and out in hiding for whatever Stark-ish reason he had to be hiding. She knew the man better than Steve did, after all.

However calm she was about it, the whole thing was fraying Steve to bits. He realized that maybe somewhere along the line he had actually started to care for the guy, because this was not a proper reaction for news of the death of a vaguely distant teammate he hadn’t even seen in weeks. It struck a chord in him to think that the next time they were called to assemble, Iron Man wouldn’t be there. And a world without his clever quips and well timed repulsor blasts and inappropriate jokes that Steve always secretly found funny… That felt like a wrench to the heart.

It must have come across in his face, because Natasha pulled him aside later, looked him right in the eye, and said, “It’s going to be fine. We’re talking about Tony Stark here, remember?”

And she was right. He didn’t know how, but she was, because a few hours later they got the call from Pepper that Tony was, in fact, alive and in contact with her, and Steve was so relieved and so surprised by that relief, he could swear he almost melted.

**3.**

The next time it happened, they were on a mission to take down another Hydra base. It had been pretty standard, routine stuff up until some more Hydra goons had shown up out of the blue as reinforcements, and then they were quickly getting more and more overwhelmed. They had been separated, Steve knew that because he liked to keep Iron Man in his field of vision whenever he possibly could, and somewhere off in the distance, Stark was getting cornered.

The last thing he heard before Tony’s comms went out was that he was going to need some backup fast, and then there was an explosive blast and the terrible, grinding _thud_ of metal against a brick wall before the line died.

Steve ran faster than he ever remembered having run before, vaulting over a wall and into the main part of the base where he knew Stark had been last. He caught a flash of gold and red behind a thick cluster of Hydra agents, and he sprang down on them, catching as many as he could by surprise with a few quick tosses of his shield. Iron Man was crumpled against the wall, and kicking aside another Hydra guy, Steve sprinted towards him.

 _Please, oh dear God, please, let him be okay._ Steve was panicking, hands clutching desperately at the glowing light of the arc reactor. It had to be a good sign that it was still glowing, right? He tore the faceplate off and Tony was there, awake and gasping and a little wide-eyed, but above all _alive._

“Oh my God, Tony, don’t do that to me,” Steve breathed, gripping the edge an of his armor as if it would make sure Tony stayed with him.

“Uh,” Tony said after a moment. “Not really my fault there, big guy. In general I try not to kill the suit’s power when I can, but those goons have some new type of gun that does it for me, apparently.”

“The whole suit’s offline?” Steve grimaced. “Tony, it’s too dangerous for you to go back out there--”

“Wow, possessive boyfriend much?” Tony said. Wheezing slightly, he sat up against the wall, the dead weight of the armor slowing him down. He took another glance at Steve. “Oh my God, you’re blushing.”

Steve tried to stammer something in denial, but Tony cut him off. “No, no, you’re kind of adorable when you blush. You’re like a big supersoldier puppy. Also, I think that might be the first time you actually called me Tony instead of Stark or Iron Man, so that’s nice.” Tony reached up with one gloved finger and poked him in the nose. “Aaaaand you’re blushing even harder now. Wow. This is fun!”

Steve looked down, his cheeks burning. “Can we please just move on with the mission? We need to find a way to get your suit back online, or else you can’t go back out there.”

“Okay, okay, I’m just saying, if I knew all it took was you thinking I’m dead to finally call me by my first name like actual friends do, I would have done that ages ago.”

Steve resisted the temptation to tell him that he already had thought he was dead. Twice. Instead he merely grabbed Tony’s gauntleted hand and pulled him up.

**4.**

A couple months had passed since the whole fiasco with Ultron blew over, and things were settling into somewhat of a routine. No unexpected alien attacks, no team members going missing, no annoying geniuses breaking off to do dangerous research on their own-- it was nice. The old team was in fragments, but they had a new one, joined occasionally by Tony and very rarely by Thor. Steve could get used to this. It was normal, it was routine, and somehow, Steve was happy.

That is, until he got the news that Tony Stark had gone missing.

It had been nothing. No big deal. He had just been a little unwisely far from his home when he was attacked by some idiots from Hydra they seemed to have left behind when doing their sweep for the scepter. They had been trying to use Tony as bait to bring in Captain America, which, really, was a very bad decision, because Tony was very much smart enough to get out of a situation like that on his own. That was the reason he rarely ever did get into situations like that. And he had been fine, he had taken care of it, just lost connection for a bit and been stranded, but completely fine.

Still. There had been a moment back there, before Tony had come back into contact with them all to let them know he was okay, where he had thought his friend was dead. And that just wrenched the breath right out of him, because what kind of world would it be if it didn’t have Tony in it?

He was so filled with relief when Tony finally got back to the compound that he nearly crushed the man in a hug. Tony, if possible, looked even more surprised than the last time.

“What’s up with you, Cap?” he said. “I mean, not that I’m complaining,” he added with a wry, somewhat delighted grin, “but really, I was fine back there. Situation completely under control. No cause for concern.”

“It was a cause for concern for me, Tony.” Steve took a step back and sighed. “You can’t keep doing this to me.”

“Doing what?”

“Making me think you’re dead.”

“That’s an accident. And also kinda part of the superhero job there, Cap.”

“I know, but—” He broke off in a frustrated, breathy growl. All of it was coming to a head, the whole thing was crescendoing terribly and Steve was just swept away by his panic and his hopelessness and his grief and — “New York. When the mansion was destroyed. When your suit went offline. _Today_. Tony, you’re going to kill me if this keeps on happening, if you keep throwing yourself into danger. You have to have some semblance of a self preservation instinct, because Tony, I don’t know what I would— I mean, what the team would— do without you. You can’t just— you can’t just disappear on us.”

Something in Tony’s demeanor shifted, and his gaze became gentler. He patted Steve on the shoulder. “Hey. It’s fine, okay? I’m alive. And I’ll. Try not to die? I didn’t really realize you cared that much, Cap.”

“Of course I care.”

Tony flinched slightly at the words, but the half-smile that came next was genuine. “I don’t want to hurt you, okay? I’ve never wanted to hurt you. I’ll be more careful. And Cap— Steve. I’m not going anywhere.”

Steve nodded, pressing his tongue to the roof of his mouth just to make 100% sure he wasn’t about to start crying, because he really didn’t trust himself not to after breaking off into that way-too-passionate, probably-somewhat-revealing-about-his-true-feelings-for-Tony speech.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Tony repeated. “I can promise you that. You’re my friend and it’s going to take a lot more than a couple of brushes with death to make me leave you. Okay?”

When he said it like that, Steve could almost believe him.

**5.**

But that turned out to be complete and utter bullshit, because less than a month later the team was collapsing in a way that was maybe definitely completely Steve’s fault.

If he had just told Tony, he often thought bitterly to himself in the months that followed, if he had just said something about his parents… Could all of it have been avoided? Could the Avengers still be a team? Could he and _Tony_ be a team?

It wasn’t like it was over yet. There was still a chance, Steve always reminded himself. He had left Tony the flip phone. Tony could call at any moment.

But months dragged into years, and he heard no word from him. Which meant nothing. It meant Tony was okay, at least, and the remainder of the Avengers were okay, or else Tony would have called asking for help.

It still hurt like a knife in his side knowing that Tony hadn’t ever gotten over what Steve had done to him.

And then when he did get finally get a call, two years after the Avengers broke up, and he had answered it, thrumming with excitement and a quiet, buried eagerness, it had turned out to be Bruce. And Tony turned out to be lightyears away, in the dark, dangerous void of space, and there was absolutely nothing Steve could do about that fact except fight. He had to give it everything he had against Thanos’ armies in Wakanda, not just for the whole world, but for Tony. Tony who was up there somewhere without him. Tony who could be dead any minute and he would have no idea.

Tony, who he had hurt so badly, and who had never forgiven him for it.

Even at the end, there had been hope that Tony was alive. Even when Thanos arrived and began plowing through their armies, Steve had held out hope that maybe, just maybe, wherever Tony was, Thanos had spared him.

But then the mad Titan snapped his fingers.

And half the universe disappeared.

Steve sat, grasping desperately at Bucky’s ashes, feeling every ounce of hope leave him. It was over. It was fucking over. Just like that, Thanos had won. Bucky and Sam were gone, and so were Wanda and Vision and the Wakandan King, T’Challa, and who knows how many others, spread out around the world, the universe.

And so was Tony.

His last fiber of hope that Tony was alive was beginning to crumble, and felt his shoulders slump, then start to shake. This wasn’t happening, he thought, his breath coming out in gasps, this isn’t happening. He must be dreaming, there was no way that anything this terrible could ever happen in real life, losing half the Avengers, half his family, losing his best friend before they’d gotten a chance to make amends-- No. It was some kind of trick, or lie, or something, it wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real. He would have felt it, or something. Wasn’t that how it always worked in the movies?

He felt Natasha’s hand lightly touch his shoulder, and he whirled around, jumping at the touch. Natasha sat down beside him without another word and slid her arm around Steve’s shoulders, just barely long enough to get all the way around. Steve eased into the touch.

“There’s still a chance,” Natasha said, her voice gentle and feather-light. “We don’t know the death count for sure yet. Tony and the kid could be alive.”

Steve glanced over at her, and she met his eyes. Her manner was as composed as ever, but there was a glisten to her eyes, as if she was blinking back tears.

“Don’t give up just yet,” she said in a firm, although slightly choked up, voice. “Even if it seems hopeless now, there are people left to fight for.”

And sure enough, Natasha was right. As usual. Rocket, the raccoon Thor had been travelling with, managed to play with some complicated tracking and figured out that the ship that Tony left on, Thanos’ ship, had intercepted their own ship, the Benatar, on Titan. And now the Benatar was making its own way across space. Damaged, stranded, with not enough fuel to make the full trip, but someone was there to pilot it.

Perhaps one of the Guardians.

But maybe it was Tony.

And once again, after the woman Fury must have paged showed up at the compound and they sent her off to locate the Benatar, Tony came back to him. Even when Steve thought he was dead, even when he was shivering and almost starved and still ever so bitter of what Steve had done to him, Tony always came back. Like he promised.

**+1**

He had been in the thick of battle, fighting hard, barely able to pay any mind to what was going on with Thanos and the gauntlet, when the creature he’d been trying to drive his shield through abruptly stopped in its tracks. It gave a confused growl, and before Steve could do a double take to see what the hell was going on, the creature faded away to dust.

Steve felt his heartbeat pick up. He glanced upwards, eyes meeting Sam’s, and suddenly he could see that all around the battlefield, Thanos’ army were disappearing. Turning to dust just like before. Except this time he wasn’t going to lose Sam and Bucky and Wanda. This time, the only people who were getting dusted were Thanos and his allies.

 _Did we just win? This doesn’t make sense. How--?_ His eyes travelled across the plain, over to where Thanos too was turning to ash, and finally down, down, down to where a figure was collapsing against a large piece of rubble, head bowed, with Rhodes rushing down to help him. _Oh no. Oh no no no._

_Tony._

Every inch of his body was screaming at him to run to him, but there was Rhodes, and Peter, and Pepper was flying in, and it wasn’t his place, it wasn’t his place _, it wasn’t his place_ , he had to scream at himself. He was panicking. That was what was happening, his thoughts were flying in a mile a minute and he was panicking and— this wasn’t how it went down— this wasn’t how it was supposed to go down— why was this happening? It would be okay, he knew, Tony would turn out to be alive, Tony _had_ to be alive, but there was no Natasha here to tell him that, not anymore. So he had to remind himself. It was just like the first time, he tried to think, Tony had fallen, Tony had been almost dead, but then it was all okay, because the Hulk roared and Tony came back and Steve had said—

“We won.”

Hearing Peter whisper those words felt like being crushed, like every ounce of living tissue in Steve was being torn apart. Because there was Tony. And he was supposed to say “yayyyy” and go rambling on some completely Tony-ish tangent about something stupid like wanting to try shawarma, did you hear about that new shawarma joint? And Steve was supposed to smile down at him, feeling so full and happy and just not being able to contain his relief that Tony was alive.

That was what was supposed to happen, so _why wasn’t it happening?_

Why was he staying silent and not responding?

_And why had the arc reactor just blinked off?_

Steve was numbly aware of seeing Sam and Bucky and then the rest of the cluster of people across from him slowly lower down to one knee, and beside him, Scott was doing the same. Yes, of course, he realized, it was a sign of respect for Tony. Who had just saved the universe. And was now currently tucked under an outcropping, next to a sobbing Pepper, completely unresponsive. His throat thick, Steve aimed to take a knee too, but he ended up halfway collapsing to the ground. He shuddered back a sob. Something inside him felt shaky and hollow and wrong, like he was off kilter somehow. Five times he had thought Tony Stark was dead. Five times he had, to some degree, felt this pain.

Every single time, Tony came back.

So why wasn’t he coming back?

 _It’s not true,_ he told his hammering heart. _It can’t be. This isn’t how it goes. Tony is alive. He’s just— he did the same thing Nick Fury did— he must have— he can’t, there has to be another way to save him, this_ can’t _be happening—_

To Steve’s own surprise, he had crossed the distance over to Tony’s side without even knowing it, cupping his hands around Tony’s neck and feeling his lack of a pulse with a gut-wrenching certainty. _It’s not--_ He closed his eyes. _It doesn’t make any sense._ Tony was always too animated, too lively to ever look like he did now. What was this limp, bloody, Tony-shaped thing doing in front of him? His hands begin to shake. Where was _his_ Tony? Why did someone replace his Tony with this thing?

He felt a hand on his back and half-expected to look up to see Natasha there, but she was just as dead as the body before him, he had to remind himself. Instead, it was Pepper’s. Roused, he managed to pull himself together enough to glance over at her, see her nod, and then reach down and pick Tony’s body up, cradling it in his arms. He was reminded all too harshly of the times he would have to collect a passed out Tony from his lab in Avengers Tower, back before any of this shit had gone down and he was still allowed to linger for a bit longer than necessary to enjoy the contact between them. Back when that Tony had been alive and drooling and with adorably mussed up hair that Steve neatly combed back into place with his fingers, not limp and dead and fragile in his hands.

He whispered a hushed “I love you” into Tony’s lifeless ears. Something he had always wanted to say, but had never had the courage to in the past. A confession that came far too late. He remembered all the times he’d look over at Tony, bright-eyed and thinking hard and frankly way too unfairly adorable for Steve to be able to deal, and wanted to say those words. He remembered the months he’d spent after the Avengers split up, wishing he had worked up the courage to.

He wanted it even harder now. He wished the him of the past had had the guts to tell Tony how he felt, or maybe that the him post-civil war hadn’t believed it was too late for it to do any good. He remembered all that.

And he remembered a time way back, when a terrifying battle with death and a whispered “We won” resulted in a quick, quippy grumble, not silence and choked sobs. When Tony was alive, wonderfully alive and promising to stay that way no matter how paranoid or terrified Steve got for his life. When every time he fell, Tony got back up.

Well, this was a fall he could never return from.

**Author's Note:**

> edit 8/11— added the kneeling from the deleted scene


End file.
